Prokofy Neva

The reason I didn't put the script in the code window is because when I try that, it says "your browser does not suppor that" (I use Opera) and it's just a nuisance to go find Google and download it and make it do all this now. But I'll try to remember next time. As I explained in my original post, these are " notecard distribution services". Once again -- there are two scripts, "deliver" and "request". I just put the first one because THAT is the one that I want to change. It sounds like you're saying that you have to live with this problem of getting the unique key. So again, I hope you can see the problem: The first prim with the delivery script in it is LOST. This keeps happening. Why, I don't know. BECAUSE it happens, I'm stuck with a huge annoyance. The *second* prim -- separate from the first -- has a *Request Notecard" script. On that script, you put the key. Now imagine that you copy and distribute that second prim -- there are hundreds of these scattered all over -- people get them so they can keep getting updates. Now, when that first client -- delivery -- script inside a prim is lost, you are stuck. You can't -- apparently -- create a new prim and make the delivery script in that prim have the OLD key number, such as to be able to keep talking to all those hundreds of other prims out there with the "request notecard". It's a real weakness of this system. How can it be changed? Yes, it spits out this message -- because it's in the script: " My object key has likely changed. Please make sure that all client terminals are set to access the following key" Now envision what is involved in "making sure all the client terminals are set to access the following key". That means going all over 50 sims, hundreds of people etc etc and issuing an entirely new delivery prim and script with a new key -- because of this nuisance -- so they can get the updates. So naturally I'm wondering how can we get rid of its "need" to have an object key generated from a new prim? How can we put in the script THE OLD KEY from the original prim, now lost?

No, it makes no sense. But since it has repeatedly happened, I have to ask the question.

Thanks. Well, as I wrote, "Obviously, the servers have another script in it which is called "Request Notecard" and the key is pasted into that." So below is that script in case it's relevant, but it's not (they go in two separate prims). So then the operative question is, again, how can you force the script to accept a key? See the key you have to insert on this "Request Notecard" script? At the top? That comes from the prim in which the first script is located - it generates automatically each time you rez it. So the question is: can you get the first script to use that key? string SERVER_KEY = "8bcd0fd5-9f08-d6e6-ef11-86fcb3c1ffb9"; string CMD_GIVE = "give"; default { touch_start(integer num_agents) { string subject = "Notecard Request"; string body = CMD_GIVE + "|News"; string address = SERVER_KEY + "@lsl.secondlife.com"; integer i; for( i = 0; i<num_agents; i++ ) { key kAgent = llDetectedKey( i ); body += "|" + (string)kAgent + "|" + llDetectedName(i) + "|" + llGetRegionName(); llInstantMessage( kAgent, "Request submitted"); llSetText("Busy",<1,1,1>,1); llEmail( address, subject, body ); llSetText("",<1,1,1>,1); } } }

1. So just to confirm -- any gatcha sold on the MP that is set merely to the "gatcha" category and not some other category or sub-category where it might "belong" will not be removed by Lindens. If that's the case, welcome to a flood into that category, which does indeed ease MP sales by making it far easier to upload without fussing about categories. Since most people search by full names of an item, it likely doesn't harm sales. Those that want to fuss with categories are presumably still free to do so and will not be punished because they didn't put it in some other category besides "Gatcha". 2. You really should take up my challenge of buying 100 gatcha items and then uploading -- to categories NOT "gatcha" (if "gatcha" is now that free-for-all that you seem to indicate). If the Lindens won't give you the budget for this, I'm happy to send you $5000.

What is it about this script that causes prims to disappear? (Originally scripted by Ordinal Malaprop, who is no longer inworld). I'm forced to ask this bizarre question after a dozen or more experiences over the years where prims with this script in it disappear. For good. Yes, they are set to the right group. No, they are not in "share". No, the sim hasn't been overfilled with prims such as to force prims back in inventory. No, it's not in Lost & Found. It's gone. And the other way you know it's gone besides looking at the empty spot where it used to be is by touching the "Request Delivery" terminal that it used to be linked to -- and no notecard is delivered. So just today, I discovered that a client prim with this script in it which has literally sat on a sim for 10 years and functioned perfectly is *gone*. Nothing else is gone. Since I've had this experience multiple times with my rentals client and similar notecard distribution services on multiple sims, I have to ask: why is it doing this (rather than "who is doing this"). Why does it matter? The problem is that you can't simply replace it. It works on the principle that each time you rez out a prim with it, it generates a new key. Then you have the awful chore of putting that new key in all the numerous servers out there that now have only the old key from the disappeared client -- and hence don't work. So my real question is: is there any way to force this script not to generate a new key, but accept the key that you give it, namely, the old key -- which all those hundreds of servers have in it. Obviously, the servers have another script in it which is called "Request Notecard" and the key is pasted into that. If any terminology in this post is wrong, i.e. I've mixed up "client" and "server" and what they do, don't let that distract you. You can see the issue. The prim generates a new key -- and maybe that's because every prim has to have its own unique UUID and therefore you can't change it. But for the purpose of this script functioning, I do wonder if it is possible somehow. // ================================ // Configuration // ================================ //Specify a name for the folder to give items in or leave empty to give items seperately. string DELIVERY_FOLDER = ""; // Reporting functions added by Ordinal Malaprop 2007-05-27 // Set to the key of the av you wish to send reports to // "" disables reports // "owner" sends reports to the owner string REPORT = "owner"; // ================================ // DO NOT EDIT below this point. // integer EMAIL_RECEIVED = -678; string CMD_GIVE = "give"; integer INVENTORY_TYPES = INVENTORY_NOTECARD; list lItemsToGive = []; // Added by Ordinal - this is the running report string, leave it alone string gReport = ""; DeliverItems( key kAgent ) { integer iNumObjects = llGetListLength(lItemsToGive); if( iNumObjects > 0 ) { if( DELIVERY_FOLDER != "" ) { llGiveInventoryList( kAgent, DELIVERY_FOLDER, lItemsToGive); } else { string sObjectName; integer i; for( i = 0; i<iNumObjects; i++ ) { sObjectName = llList2String(lItemsToGive, i); string prefix = llGetSubString(sObjectName,0,1); if( prefix != "!*" ) { llGiveInventory( kAgent, sObjectName); } } } } } init() { llOwnerSay("Initializing list of items to be given."); lItemsToGive = []; integer iNumObjects = llGetInventoryNumber( INVENTORY_TYPES ); string sObjectName; integer i; for( i = 0; i<iNumObjects; i++ ) { sObjectName = llGetInventoryName( INVENTORY_TYPES, i ); string prefix = llGetSubString( sObjectName, 0, 1 ); if( prefix != "!*" ) { if(llGetInventoryPermMask(sObjectName, MASK_NEXT) & PERM_COPY) { lItemsToGive += sObjectName; } } } if( (llGetListLength(lItemsToGive) >= 1) && (DELIVERY_FOLDER != "") ) { llOwnerSay("Initialization done, the following items will be given in a folder named [" + DELIVERY_FOLDER + "]:"); llOwnerSay( llList2CSV( lItemsToGive ) ); } else if( (llGetListLength(lItemsToGive) >= 1) && (DELIVERY_FOLDER == "") ) { llOwnerSay("Initialization done, the following items will be given:"); llOwnerSay( llList2CSV( lItemsToGive ) ); } else { llOwnerSay("Initialization done, there are no items to give:"); } // added by Ordinal if (REPORT == "owner") llOwnerSay("Sending reports to you"); else if (REPORT == "") llOwnerSay("Not sending delivery reports"); else llOwnerSay("Sending reports to the av with key " + REPORT); } default { state_entry() { init(); } on_rez( integer status ) { key kOwner = llGetOwner(); llInstantMessage( kOwner, "My object key has likely changed. Please make sure that all client terminals are set to access the following key:"); // modified by Ordinal Malaprop 2007-05-27 // as it was saying the wrong key llInstantMessage( kOwner, (string)llGetKey() ); init(); } touch_start(integer n) { // This touch event added by Ordinal Malaprop 2007-05-27 key owner = llGetOwner(); if (llDetectedKey(0) != llGetOwner()) return; llOwnerSay("My key is " + (string)llGetKey() + " - make sure this is included in every client script."); } link_message(integer sender_num, integer msg_flag, string message, key id) { if( msg_flag == EMAIL_RECEIVED ) { string subject = (string)id; list lData = llParseString2List( message, ["|"],[""] ); string sCommand = llList2String(lData, 0); if( sCommand == CMD_GIVE ) { string sCategory = llList2String(lData, 1); key kAgent = llList2String(lData, 2); DeliverItems( kAgent ); // Send report to specified agent // Added by Ordinal Malaprop 2007-05-27 // This will only respond with clients that send data with name and location // as the fourth and fifth items of data. Older clients won't get reports. if (REPORT != "" && llGetListLength(lData) > 3) { // Construct a readable time string and report list timeBits = llParseString2List(llGetTimestamp(), ["T", "."], []); string report = "[" + llList2String(timeBits, 0) + " " + llList2String(timeBits, 1) + "] " + llList2String(lData, 3) + " (" + llList2String(lData, 4) + ")"; // If running report is getting too long, send it then blank it. // Add the latest report to the end in either case. if (llStringLength(gReport + report) > 1022) { if (REPORT == "owner") { llInstantMessage(llGetOwner(), gReport); } else { llInstantMessage(REPORT, gReport); } gReport = report; } else { gReport += "\n" + report; } } // end of Ordinal-added bit } } } changed( integer change ) { if( change & (CHANGED_INVENTORY | CHANGED_OWNER) ) { init(); } } }

Dakota, Thanks for your detailed response. I review the link for "Marketplace Categories" daily, even multiple times a day, when I...try to fathom which category a thing should go in. That's why we're having this conversation. And of course, you're right that "snacks" and "sandwiches" exist as categories and I've uploaded items to them and sold them from there so I realize that, so my example wasn't a correct one -- which doesn't remove the problem. I'll try again to explain. Every time I have a food gatcha to upload -- and lots of gatchas are food -- I struggle. Why? Because the food categories are not easy or clear. They may seem comprehensive -- but when you have something that doesn't seem to quite fit any of them, you want to put them in just "food" without any punishment. "Soups" and "lunch" are definitely not there, even though "breakfasts" or "sandwiches" might be. Is a white sauce a condiment, which is a category? Sauce is not. Raw "fruits" and "vegetables" are categories but "vegetarian" isn't nor "casserole," so where could you put a vegetarian casserole? A spinach pie. "Full meal" isn't quite right. "Snacks" implies junk food, not hors oeuvre which are fancier, like canapes. Every day in every way, ordinary people not on the forums struggle with this. So the task is how to make it less annoying and discouraging for them. I am trying to get this across to you from actual daily, multiple uploads. I suggest you yourself get a budget from LL, spend a week shopping at all the events and playing multiple gatcha items, obtain no less than 100 gatcha items, and then upload them yourself to the MP. I think this would be a very good lesson to you what it is like to actually do this, rather than to think about it in the abstract and invoke laws on the heads of people attempting to do it in good faith. I realize that you feel you are "done" when you have cited law -- and your fanboyz gleefully hitting "hearts" in the corner feel they have "won". But really, the only way you will have won is when you really do this yourself and gain some insights. So go and do it, you will learn a lot. It's not easy. I realize it's easier to invoke guidelines as draconian law rather than realize that with community feedback you yourselves could change those guidelines without forcing individual residents into letter campaigns, without any lawyer or board member caring a whit. It's eminently possible. It's done all the time. "Breakfast" in fact is not where "coffee and donuts" go when you are putting them out for a meeting or all day as a side bar for an office build, for example. They're not "breakfast" then but just "food". It's nice to know you could put them in that "breakfast" category without punishment as if you were in a 24-hour diner. But I'd rather be able to just put them under "food" without punishment because they aren't breakfast as such. You wouldn't "just know" to look for a category called "Cookies & Snacks" because you would think of snacks as separate, and cookies going under "desserts". Or even being in a category of its own. Obviously I type in "snacks" and find it -- but where does "brownie" go? "Dessert" or "Cookies and Snacks?" That's another bewildering thing about MP categories -- why aren't there lots more of them? The system wouldn't lose anything or be more burdened by having them. PS one of the most vexing and puzzling aspects of the *categories* for an object sold as distinct from the "communities" which are a different thing is that the words "RP" or "elf" or "wiccan" or "druid" or "fairy" do not appear as categories despite zillions of items in those categories in fact. It's just absolutely mind-boggling. Why? You are forced to put a witch's crystal ball in "decor". Or a fairy tree in "landscaping" although if there were "wiccan" or "fairy" as a category they would much more appropriately go in them. But there aren't. There simply aren't enough ordinary categories for ordinary words. Just now I tried to find "soap" or "perfume" to upload some gatchas -- an actual bar of soap and an actual perfume bottle. They don't exist in any categories as such. Where shall I put this bar of gentleman's soap or this exotic perfume? Hmmm...bathroom? Nope, that obviously won't work, that's about furniture and fixtures. How about "toiletries"? No, that doesn't exist as a category. It's not an "avatar accessory" -- that would be something like a belt or a mask. Hmm....what have my fellow sellers put this item under? One has "home and gardens" -- and that's it. Another has "home and gardens - decor" -- which I use a lot. A third has "used". Let me suggest that when you have a system that forces people to take an ordinary household item and have to try three different categories -- or more -- you have a problem. You have a problem with a) not enough refined categories and popular and common words and b) a system that forces people into top categories c) a system that drives people to large, capacious, stupid categories like "used" because then they won't be punished. That's why you aren't making more money. Once again, it's not true that items put into a top level category actually "sell less" BECAUSE the behaviour of people searching for gatchas is most often to put the entire name of the object into search and pulling it up that way, not looking for them generically -- although they may do that, too. And there are overwhelming numbers of gatchas put in top-level only! Like "home and gardens" or "landscaping" and not "fence", all of which are selling as we speak like hotcakes and you can't possibly nab and punish them all. So don't. The "top level" rule serves no purpose. It's a guideline. You can change it. Page through the zillions of gatchas and see how many are in top categories only -- and sell constantly all day long -- and realize you can't punish them all. And realize they sell despite being in top categories because frankly, categories don't matter much for gatchas to anybody but you. Most people search for them by their full exact name, or the name of the set, or the creator's name plus a name of one of the things in the set. Sliding a price to "low" in searching for a fence really will not turn up that truly cheap $25 fence which is a gatcha that might even have once been a $75 pull from a famous creator. Typing in "gatcha fence" will really work better. Giving search tips might be a better way to move the products on your MP rather than forcing people to drill down into categories and risk punishment. In conclusion, sure, it's easy to ridicule a person like me who explains in good faith that it is TOO HARD TO SELL on your MP BECAUSE OF CATEGORIES -- something everyone knows, especially gatcha sellers -- and invoke this or that actual category they might have overlooked, or corporate guidelines that you imply are immutable. But the reality is, you could a) add a lot more categories b) not be punitive on the top-category issue and you would make a lot of money. So you really have to ask why you are doing that. So as I think about this I suppose the reason could be you'd like to discourage gatcha sales. Like telehubs, they are the object of hatred and derision by the socialists on the forums and those who want the market to contain only their own clothes, houses and weapons and no one else's -- and this prosumer's lobbying group matters to you for some reason, I don't know why (they are likeminded or include top grossing creators). So you are lobbied on this. Or, another possibility is that creators of gatchas want all the sales of them to go to themselves, at pull price. They don't want re-sales to go on at half price or less because they make no money from that sale. That this is classic first-sale doctrine eludes them as they imagine they are being harmed -- and they lobby you. I can't figure out anything else.

LL will not do something like clear your business plan for possible TOS violations. They do not get involved in player-to-player conflicts -- but they also don't get involved in issuing seals of approval. You have to study the TOS yourself and SL history and launch your business and await the first AR and its response. The idea that any of us should be encouraged to send business plans to mods -- I don't know where to start. But some people enjoyed being hall monitors in school.

That was a great idea to advertise your new PI firm by posing as a thinky thread on the forums. BTW rent my land -- but not for this. I don't see that there is anything in this activity that actually violates the TOS of Linden Lab or RL law -- which in any case would have a very, very hard time being applied in a world with anonymous people with nicknames whose real identity you cannot determine. I don't know if you realize there have been a zillion such detective firms in SL, some just RP, some trying to really follow people and get dirt on them. I've kicked out some of them from my rentals, sometimes for commercial activity in residential areas, some times because they are spying on people and violating their privacy, and bans aren't always enough because they make more anonymous alts. You may not be old enough to remember this riotous incident involving a justice group that began to compile a data base on griefers -- who really were griefers and were well-documented as such -- and those griefers being savvy enough to invoke privacy laws, copyright laws, blah blah in their usual word-salad gyration -- and getting it to stick with nervous liberals. LL then winds up protecting bad actors for fear of RL lawsuits. If someone does not trust an SL partner because essentially they are an anonymous being on the Internet, where you don't even know if they are male or female or what they are, then they have more problems than your PI firm can help them with. Their problem starts with the nature of the relationship they've decided to trust -- an online one. Yet zillions of people form happy SL relations, some of them lasting years and years, very much like RL ones, with real sorrow when that person dies in RL. So it's not trivial. It's a choice people make, and that's fine. Can you help them in this choice? I wonder... Because the bad actor can always make another alt. Somebody determined to cheat on an SL spouse or partner will do that. You catch one of them -- they make another. One thing you have to be wary of is a game frequently played in SL called "let's exploit the TOS in our own vendetta." So let's say you stalk this no-good cheating hubby, and you get his chat log proving he's a cheater -- from him or from his new partner or merely from room chat. You now take that chat and send it to his suspicious spouse. That spouse confronts him. Bingo, that cheating hubby now can rightfully AR his suspicious wife for violating the rule on disseminating chat logs. Publishing chat logs outside of SL is not a crime that LL can pursue and it won't and that's important for all the Net Nannies to remember. But publishing inside through sending to someone outside the conversation is punishable.

Thanks for providing the information about the "Full Meals" -- the problem is that this won't fit "coffee and donuts" or "soup and sandwich" as they aren't full, then I risk another demotion on your MP if I use that. Thanks for providing the detailed information about what a devastation it would be to add to the object menu a "category of a thing," thereby forcing creators to choose a category when they create things. Nobody wants to create insane work for Lindens or for that matter, shift the burden we sellers now have on to creators, much less banish all legacy objects from the grid because of an update. I posited a theory, I asked whether it is feasible, it isn't, so that subject is closed now -- though someday it may be as easy as dialing a phone -- oops, I mean tapping a phone number on a screen. So now that we've cleared that up, we need to bore down more fully on what we're stuck with then, which is the forced march to put an item in one of your categories before we can sell it -- a chore -- and then the all-to-easy removal of an item if it is in a "wrong" category -- a nuisance that might ultimately block some of us from the MP entirely. I can't endorse your rule, "no item should ever be placed into a top level category, unless there isn't a sub-category for the item." Imagine if the rest of the Internet world worked that way. If you couldn't put a site in a Yelp category or anything of that notion unless you bore down to a sub-category -- or risk removal. There aren't such conventions on other services. Even when there are, punishment doesn't ensure for the wrong pull-down. It's unnecessarily punitive. "Recreation and Entertainment" is already odd as a food top category because food is not always about recreation or entertainment. The fact that it is not true sustenance shouldn't distract from that reality of virtuality. Food could be put on a table in an office to make it look real -- coffee and donuts. People put tables with soup bowls on them in their homes to make them look realistic -- it's not about entertainment, except in the higher take of all things in SL being about entertainment at some level. As I've explained, "Full Meal" can't work for all food. Maybe it's not "fruit" or "vegetables". So if I left it only in "recreation and entertainment" -- PS like millions of items already on the MP -- because "snack" or "sandwich" doesn't exist as a sub-category -- because this is your top category for food items -- it should be sufficient and not punishable. If someone has labored to put a fence gatcha into "building components" and no further, it shouldn't be a crime. They shouldn't be tasked to do the further sub-division into "fences" or punished for failing to do so because it is *not justified*. It's the sort of finicky time-waster that destroys your credibility managing the Marketplace. You have to follow actual use when policing software. Most searches for gatchas are by their full title as the creator named them, often with funny symbols or mispelled words in them (which is why this behavior is common). People are looking for a specific gatcha item to complete a set -- that is the most common case. True, somebody might wake up in the morning and think, "I need a fence. I think I'll search for a gatcha fence because they'll be cheap and see all fences that turn up from gatchas". In this more generic case, that person will not find a gatcha fence that was NOT put in the sub-division of "fence" because even if the item has a chance of being found because "fence" is in its name or description. That's because too many non-gatcha copyable fences will show up first. So he will have to add the term "gatcha" to his fence search. The hypothetical that could justify your sub-division is that someone wants a fence, gatcha or not, and now they have been thwarted because theoretically gatcha fences not put in the fence category will not show up on a "fence" search. That's a very tiny subset of people, because most people searching for fences will want a store-bought, not gatcha fence that is copyable so they can put it all around their property. The gatch fence searcher wants a cheap solution -- maybe to buy one or four individual gatcha fences for a small garden. A search on the word "fence" will not turn up any gatcha fences in the first ten pages, anyway. But once the user types "gatcha fence" because he wants a cheap one and is willing to take a single-copy object, there are zillions of them. Note very few have been put in the category "Building and Object Components » Structural Components » Fences and Railings" And don't you dare punish them now because I've called them to your attention. They have "landscaping" or "used" or all kinds of things WHiCH SHOULD BE LEGITIMATE. They should NOT be punished. Indeed, your goal of punishing people without refined categories is TOO BIG A JOB. (That it happens to me frequently might be explained because Lindens deliberately look for it on my store.) But let's remember what your mission is here, Dakota. Your mission is to help make money for Linden Lab via the Marketplace. Linden Lab gets a cut of every item sold on the Marketplace, and God bless them for that, it's their long-term plan for profitability (not one I think is valid, since I think the land/sim model is a better one, but leave that aside now -- it's theirs). That means everything you do all day has to MAXIMIZE PROFITS for Linden Lab. You do not do that when you MAKE IT HARD for people to enter your market and sell things -- from which you take your cut! I personally let hundreds of items languish even already in the marketplace device in the viewer, let alone in inventory, because I don't have the time or will to sit and fuss with categories and hope I've pulled down the right one and not be punishied. It's time-consuming and stupid. There is no goal served by forcing refinement of categories. I can see if somebody has put an ordinary chair that does nothing into "adult furniture" as a sex bed to sell it as more racy than it is, you have to act. I can see if someone puts a chair into "weapons" to make it appeal to some category of buyers, you could act. But a fence put in "building components" that didn't drop down further to "fence"? No. It's a nice practice to encourage -- maybe the user will sell more that way. But it's not something to punish -- and therefore discourage sales tax for yourself. That is how you must understand it. The worst thing about all this is that I hear you telling me that "Gatchas" as a category for ANY Gatcha -- which I thought was going to be a work-saver and time-saver now, isn't going to be accepted if there is another *sub*-category to put the item in -- and there almost always is. I cry, when I don't laugh in SL, most days.

No, the Overwatch loot boxes are indeed not like gatchas. Overwatch is sold directly for US dollars online. Gatchas occur inworld after a customer has purchased a limited license to access content in that world only -- known as "Linden dollars" which are not any form of currency, but more like Green Stamps. The Lindens, unlike people on the forums, have a real business with real lawyers and have worked out all this for years so the panic-mongering over this is misplaced. And truly, I don't know what you're going on about. If I play a gatcha machine in SL that is 50/pull 10 times, I've spent... 13 cents. Meanwhile, the cheapest Overwatch crate is $1.99. A gumball machine that distributes random prizes -- which is what a gatcha is -- is not illegal in the United States. It's not something that falls under real-life or online gambling laws. It's not money, it's prizes, items. That's why no court in the US has pressured Blizzard and why Blizzard isn't banning this. If you can take those prizes and re-sell them later, that doesn't matter, because a law will not over-reach into the next sale. The "next sale" doctrine is one often argued about with things like CDs, but it is not at all likely. The amounts of money that are equivalent to a gatcha with $50 a pull in Second Life indeed are really the equivalent of pennies or dimes put in a gumball machine. It's only Belgian courts that have ruled on the Overwatch lootcrates and Blizzard has only disabled them in Belgian. Netherlands is pushing for this to be EU-wide, but it didn't happen yet. Second Life is maintained by a US-based company, although I believe it still has a London office. So it will not comply with a EU law on US territory. As with the VAAT issue, it will be slow in implementing any Europe-imposed law. When it does, they will do something token, like disable access to the "gatchas" category on the MP for those with European log-in addresses and not attempt to police it inworld. How could they? And again -- a lootbox purchased outright for US dollas of $1.99 is not like a gatcha accessed with the Linden dollars purchased by US dollars first, for use inworld. I realize that you must loath gatches for some reason and this has become a "thing" for you. Maybe you're in Europe or Belgium specifically and worried about this. But once again, they are not the same thing as I've just spelled out.

Governor Linden once appeared to me. It turns out that contrary to all the cliches and prejudices, Governor Linden is actually a young, black female in a fashionable outfit, not a grey-bearded old dude in ancient clothing. I have pictures to prove it. Governor Linden has also spoken to me in IMs. During those few times, I noticed that the Governor used British spellings. Governor Linden is not elected or even appointed. She just *is*. On the Mainland, she has all the power, yes.

I think the short answer to the first question is that this is a world with user-made content. The games you are use to are all made uniformly by the game devs so they control its view. You can set your graphics sliders downward to accommodate user-generated content that is complex. Putting the draw distance down below 100 generally ensures less lag, plus getting rid of shadows, etc. This is on Me/Preferences/Graphics. There isn't a set thing to do. If you get off the train in Grand Central Station in New York City, there isn't a set thing to do. But you can grab tourist brochures, use Yelp and Google with search terms and then you will find the things of interest to you, whether "sports" or "sex" or "tours" or whatever. You can also just walk/fly around and see if anything captures your fancy. Use the search/places and the events list with terms of things you are interested in as well. PS: the game is only 15 years old, and I have not been beaten yet, even by 50,000-person raids.

I have several apartment buildings as well as town houses, visit the office in Alston or IM me.

I have this system, you get a $250/week credit for 512 m contribution and $450/wk credit for 1024 m contribution to any group.

No, there is currently no way to do this on the normal SL viewer on the "about land" menu on group land for someone with the "Everyone" role, say, a tenant -- or even with more involved roles, say, "resident" or "builder" -- if you have not awarded that ability. What Lindal is saying is that you can make a role in your group that I think of as "officers" that can see those boxes. But wait -- do you want anyone to be an officer and see that? The purpose of seeing this list is to RETURN PRIMS. The four boxes are about RETURNING group-owned (deeded), non-group (outsiders') or group-set prims. You do not want everyone in the group to have PRIM RETURNING ability. This isn't about PRIM SEEING in a list by name. There isn't a separate category called "SEE WHO OWNS PRIMS." There's only RETURN. On the one hand, it would be great if you could have tenants themselves, say, "everyone" or "resident" see the list because you want to convince them that yes, they have put out too many prims, and it is NOT your prims, or anyone else's prims that are a problem, but indeed theirs. Trying even to screen capture this problem and sending proof in the form of a photo is hard -- you have to get the tenant then to be willing to change the proportion to say, 4:3, to be able to see the tiny type face. Believe me, I have had this problem often, including just last night. But you can't have "everyone" or even "resident with some powers" have "return group set prims" or they return their rental box, first and foremost (unless put in a separate little square in a different group which loses prim capacity in my view), then people's prims they don't like, or permanent management structures they don't like, etc. Havoc, in other words. If some other viewer has just "see list of prims by name" as a role power I don't think that's something to award, either, casually. In the end, I'd rather not have every single group member see every persons' prims on every piece of land. It destroys privacy. It means especially in an open group that anyone could join and snoop around, say, a girlfriend's lot and see if some other male suspected of having a relationship with her is also showing prims on that lot. It means no one can have roomies without everyone knowing about it.

I salute you for trying. SL depends on newer people coming in with these ideals and trying, despite the long history in SL of everything that discourages this. I was such a dewy-eyed naif once that I even *put land for sale* on Mainland sims, around a commons that I maintained, and "zoned" for stores and residences etc -- well, reality disabused me of these ideals but you know, it is still possible at least to *rent* with these ideals. I try to do all those things you say, too. That is, I don't IM my neighbours for parties because I don't have time for that but I do put out party palaces. What happens is that people come and raid them for the free dances. Or they hang out for a few moments, or they TP in a friend, but they don't stay for long. They don't become "community centers" in the sense you are thinking. Still, I maintain them. I think they make the world a better place. If no one ever comes or I get feedback they don't like a place, I sell it off or change it. I have a LOT of these sites out now in the SL Public Land Preserve. Some of them attract more visitors than others and people "hanging-out," but I think "hang-outs" come about by activities rather than scenery as others said here in this thread. I think to make a community in SL, you have to do things other people want to do, not what you want to do. This is a very, very hard lesson to learn. The hardest. It means self-sacrifice. This does not come naturally to youth in our day and age. Even so, one (scenery) can beget the other (activity) if you yourself put time in it, by putting things on the events calendar, IMing friends etc. Good luck!

Yes, this is really the brilliant solution to all those complaining about too many gatchas on the MP. Don't want to see them? Eliminate "copy". To be sure, this will also eliminate beautiful works of art that are in single copies for obvious reasons; specials that some makers have sometimes where they only have X quantity of a thing so as to increase its value, etc. but those are exceptions. I'm puzzled, BTW, at gatchas somehow cluttering the view. If you put in enough search terms and also specific price, you also get rid of their view LOL.

I don't agree with banning gatchas or separating them, but I think the bit about the RP categories is spot on. Why isn't there a category called even just "RP" as a thing? Not community, but thing. Or say, "elf" or "fairy". So the elven stuff gets marked off with that sticker. I don't get why this isn't on the MP now as it's a huge feature of the market.

They're not loot-crates. They are decorations you can buy for your home by looking at pictures and the inside of the machine, even, so you see what you are getting. Yes, there is an element of chance in what you might get, commons or rare, but you see what they are and can try for them.

I don't know that your time is well spent on parsing all this, Dakota. I have had the strangest things removed for "wrong category" and I can't figure out who has the time to report, say, a gatcha fence that was put in "building component" instead of...whatever it was you thought it should be in (still mystified as the flagged item is removed without explanation what's wrong with it). At one level, everything single thing in SL, bar none, is "Decor". It is only a decoration. It doesn't do the "real" thing, but only the virtual thing. So that is a safe and easy gatcha category I should think, especially because you want, say, "food" put into "recreation" or "celebrations" which is strange, given that, well, nobody really eats food because they don't need food as avatars. They just pretend. You do have "fruits and vegetables" but you don't have something that reflects "a nice prepared home-cooked meal". I just put a gatcha in "juice" even though you can't even pretend-drink it with anims because it's called "green apple juice" so I thought, oh well... It would really make life easier to just check GATCHA for EVERYTHING. Selling gatchas is made SO ONEROUS by having to sit and try to figure out which sub-category a thing goes in, so that Lindens don't flag it, or enemies don't abuse-report it as a means of griefing. But having trained us so well to fuss with categories, I think we could soldier on, so as to give the buyer some sort of heads-up about the thing. There's this thought -- I know it's radical -- but you could shift the onus of category-making to creators. That is, when they make -- not just upload to the MP -- a thing, they have to pre-decide a category as a function on the object-menu -- which would need, of course, a whole new coded thingy. Yes, I realize this is radical, life-changing, etc. But it's just a thought.

I just found a Conover orb deeded on a rentals but I couldn't figure out to whom it should be returned. Are these now rarities like sion chicken feed that I should sell for thousands of Lindens???

The "she" is only used to harass and heckle, it's not about anything else. My avatar is a male and should be called "he." You know, like all the forums regulars who are really males who should be called "she" if they have female avatars because that's the polite and decent thing to do. There's a custom in SL -- often practiced by males presenting as females, I find, to call me by "she" as way of ridiculing, harassing, shaming, outing RL, etc. BTW, these are TOS offenses, besides being politically-incorrect, or if you like, simply not nice. It is exposure of RL, and it's a violation. *It does not matter* if somehow you know this person's real life, either by stalking and sleuthing, or because they may have even put it on their RL blog, after being stalked and sleuthed, as a form of push-back. If you have not put your real life information on your avatar's description, it is not "fair game" to be used to harass and heckle on forums' wars. I find the Lindens are really, really colour-blind when it comes to this harassment of real-life outing, particularly with me. They will cross the Sahara to spot an offense of say, a necro-posting or some nuance of tone that they think "isn't right," but are pur-blind to this. Even when abuse-reported. I'll repeat: I find those *most guilty* of this particular hate offense are males with female avatars. Not all, but mainly. That's puzzling, until you realize that sometimes, by nature, males want to dominate everything, even as females, and even the process of a female becoming a male -- especially if that f2m is outspoken. Some males seem to think that only they own the process of transformation, and that other shape-shifters have undermined them somehow LOL. That's the only thing I can figure out. I'll give you a heads up -- 14 years of this sort of harassment in SL has not changed my views, has not silenced me, has not affected me, but only strengthened my resolve to point out once again: if it is not on an avatar's self-description, it is not fair game, the end.

I wasn't aware that you could "change a review" after you've posted it. You can add a comment, yes. So if I put a bad review, and the merchant does change something, I come back with a comment, then someone could see the history of the issue. When I got a bad review on something once, I sat down and changed and fixed things about the product, then put a comment about that so someone could see that it was changed. I wouldn't expect to "wipe out" that bad review or have it editorially changed by me or the customer.

On what browser? There's nothing like that on the regular SL browser for the mainland. What are you looking at? I see nothing resembling this at all on the "About Land" menu on any page. Those HUDs with the script readers don't seem so kludgy to me, I use them fairly often and they do sometimes find the culprits at least within a range. Of course, if it's not on your land, go to the OP... I don't recall about the child prims. What I recall is that a lot of people used listen scripts on things like devices that would show whether an avatar was online, and even for doors, and that scripters then began to get rid of or adjust that listening. But I still find things that chat on and on about their listening, or that they've stopped listening, so I don't know if that is really improved.

Yes, I reap the fruits of my labour, which consists of abuse-reporting bad behaviour, calling out bad behaviour, reporting on bad developments, and and debating bad ideas. Happy to reap them.